Thursday, August 5, 2010

Feakle Festivalling

Looking down the main street in Feakle

It seems like weeks since we were last on the boat but it's only eight days. Or is it nine. This is because we've disappeared into the parallel world of traditional music. It's the Feakle Festival and we're on the late shift. This means going to bed at quarter to or quarter past three (for some unaccountable reason) and getting up around eleven. We have the camper van parked next to the mortuary in Feakle. There's a choice of the mortuary or the graveyard, but the road by the mortuary is flatter.

Looking at the view from the hall while waiting for paparazzi subjects

We went to the festival opening last night. Well, we went to the bit where you get wine and cheese and chat to people, and I took some photos for the website (I'm the Feakle Festival webmaster. See what's on here!). Then we snuck out. It was a film about a lovely singer, but I have to confess I really don't much like a lot of traditional singing. I'm a tunes person through and through. We went back to the van and heated up the moussaka Joe had made in the afternoon while I was crisis weeding, had a glasseen or two of Pinot Grigio and walked the dogs. Then off to Shortt's to the session.

We didn't intend to stay out so late. After all, it's only Wednesday and the beginning of the festival, but it was a great session with Ged Foley and Paul Smyth (Mr Specsavers Limerick as it happens) and so it was quarter to three. Or was it quarter past? Maybe. Anyways, I had to make up the beds in the van (tedious job involving lifting the backs of the seats into the front) because Joe was a little tired and emotional. Truth be told, I'd drink taken myself, but not as much as himself.

Caher House in last year's sunshine. It's raining this year. Yuk.

Concert tonight in Caher House. Caher House is a gorgeous old mansion on Lough Graney just down the road from us that was done up a few years ago when the old man, who'd allegedly lived in one room, died and the place was sold. We're going to see the West Ocean String Quartet, and it'll be in the drawing room so we'll be all cultured instead of diddly eyed.

PS. The haircut was a success. It looked pretty good when I came out of the hairdresser. Unfortunately I had to wash it today and, although not quite Bad Hair it's not great.

Perhaps I'll have to buy the 'product' Melissa used
on it. It only cost €28.

PPS This was the sign in the car park at Ballyshannon. Do they take you away in shackles I wonder.

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About Me

Two blogs now.
Floating Boater is mostly about our life on the waterways of Ireland on Winter Solstice, our timber cruiser. She's a Rampart 32 built in 1969 in Southampton. She was one of the last this size to come out of the Rampart boatyard – plastic was the material of the future. So a classic but with a definite sixties bent.
Every summer we take off on the astonishingly varied waterways of Ireland and enter another, sweeter world. In between I tend my vegetables, look after our acre or so of garden in East Clare, write poetry, and teach and play flute. I occasionally have to do other paid work too.
We're on the move from our present house and I have a new acre to begin. So Mucky Fingernails is the gardening wing. It's a record of the creation of a new garden, starting from an open field.